WI: No knowledge of evolution

It seems impossible that anyone wouldn't end to conclusion about evolution. Someone would eventually notice how similar some animals and plants are and fossils too would give some hints. Even before Darwin some philosopher had thought evolution altough differently than Darwin did.
 
What if Darwin never comes up with the theory of evolution? What if nobody else does either?
Darwin wasn't even the first to come up with natural selection. Patrick Matthew published the essential idea in 1831, almost three decades before Darwin published anything. Edward Blyth was working with similar ideas in the 1830s (Darwin acknowledged Blyth in the Origin of Species). Alfred Russel Wallace independently invented virtually he same theory.

If Darwin doesn't explain the concept, someone else will relatively quickly thereafter.
 
As others have said this is fundamentally impossible as the principles are widely spread and rather basic. Even if both Darwin and Wallace don't exist people are bound to connect the fact that living things change over generations with their survival and competition.
What makes Darwin stand out is the sheer amount of evidence he collated and how understandable he presented it and possible mechanisms for how it worked. Not even Wallace did that.
Without them you get a more patchwork understanding and presentation but it still happens. And of course Creationists have work harder trying to discredit a rather simple and obvious theory.
 

Kaze

Banned
Alfred Russel Wallace is then remembered as the man who discovered natural selection.

Or Gregor Mendel. Even with some outside observation on how the shape of some green pees change over time, he might come up with some theory behind it.
 
Belongs in ASB.
If only because evolution was well established (Lamark, etc.) before Darwin, it was just the mechanism that he was responsible for.
Also. Even the mechanism was GOING to be discovered, for instance, Wallace came up with an almost identical mechanism, which was what prodded Darwin into publishing.
 
Or Gregor Mendel. Even with some outside observation on how the shape of some green pees change over time, he might come up with some theory behind it.

Intresting idea that churchman would begin to think something towards evolution theory even if he doesn't go as far as Darwin did.
 
Evolution was certainly "in the air" at the time, since several people independently came up with the idea in quite quick succession, but given that nobody came up with the idea before the 19th century (or if they did, they didn't manage to convince enough people to be remembered) I think claims that stopping the discovery of evolution is ASB are implausible. It would require (perhaps significant) changes to the intellectual milieu of early 19th-century Europe, but it would be doable.

As for the effects, it's hard to say without knowing just what has been changed in order to stop the idea gaining traction. But I think ideas which were more-or-less explicitly premised on evolutionary theory IOTL -- eugenics and so forth -- would be less popular, if they even arose at all.
 
Evolution was certainly "in the air" at the time, since several people independently came up with the idea in quite quick succession, but given that nobody came up with the idea before the 19th century (or if they did, they didn't manage to convince enough people to be remembered) I think claims that stopping the discovery of evolution is ASB are implausible. It would require (perhaps significant) changes to the intellectual milieu of early 19th-century Europe, but it would be doable.

As for the effects, it's hard to say without knowing just what has been changed in order to stop the idea gaining traction. But I think ideas which were more-or-less explicitly premised on evolutionary theory IOTL -- eugenics and so forth -- would be less popular, if they even arose at all.
Given that Darwin's own grandfather had ideas about evolution it's wrong to say noone thought of it before the 19th Centuries. And other naturalists had proposed similar ideas. What happened in the 19th was greater accessibility to all the new animal and plant discoveries and strong communication of ideas. It's a bit like steam engines, Watt wasn't the first to think of them but managed to make them work reasonably well that they were much more accessible than before.
Imho the only way to stop any theories of evolution gaining credibility is to massively wreck scientific studies. Considering how much rulers were investing in it across Europe, their administration would probably need wrecking too.
Some sort of near apocalypse might be needed.
 

Kaze

Banned
Intresting idea that churchman would begin to think something towards evolution theory even if he doesn't go as far as Darwin did.

Not really Darwin was still a constant Church goer and was even buried in a Church. At the time of publication the Index librorum prohibitorum was still active (it was active until 1966) - and Darwin was not included by the Catholic Church.
 
It was already there. Darwin just wrote a more accessible book.
You're right. Various theories were being built up, one by one at that time. If you look back, you see lots of similar theories that were put forth, before Darwin.

Even after Darwin's preliminarily theories, many were built upon it. Some disproved, some, not yet and some probably, never.

Those that come under the "never" category are probably true. This is actually an interesting subject with many possibilities.
 
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